About the same time, too, an awful
and heartshaking roar told me that the main battle had closed
in on the centre and extreme left. I raised myself in my stirrups
and looked down to my left; so far as the eye could see there
was a long dazzling shimmer of steel as the sun glanced upon
falling sword and thrusting spear.
To and fro swung the contending lines in that dread struggle,
now giving way, now gaining a little in the mad yet ordered confusion
of attack and defence. But it was as much as I could do to keep
count of what was happening to our own wing; and, as for the
moment the cavalry had fallen back under cover of Good's three
squares, I had a fair view of this.
Nasta's wild swordsmen were now breaking in red waves against
the sullen rock-like squares. Time after time did they yell
out their war-cries, and hurl themselves furiously against the
long triple ridges of spear points, only to be rolled back as
billows are when they meet the cliff.
And so for four long hours the battle raged almost without a
pause, and at the end of that time, if we had gained nothing
we had lost nothing. Two attempts to turn our left flank by
forcing a way through the wood by which it was protected had
been defeated; and as yet Nasta's swordsmen had, notwithstanding
their desperate efforts, entirely failed to break Good's three
squares, though they had thinned their numbers by quite a third.
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